20. Edie
EDIE
I’m here to write up the past, not audit it, which is fortunate.
After three weeks submerged in the frankly insane ravings of the late Duke of Kinnaird, it’s pretty clear that something doesn’t add up.
There are mentions of land purchases shuffled quietly between shell companies, inexplicably generous dividends paid to dubious sounding investors, and dodgy references to mythical trusts which he makes clear don’t exist.
The ancient orangery was transformed into a swimming pool on a whim as a birthday present for his wife, only by the time it was finished, they were on the way to the divorce courts, and it seems as if nobody once questioned how the renovation grant they received was being spent.
Dickie Kinnaird was laundering, skimming, fiddling the books, and playing a complicated game of chess with the foundation and seemingly had a preternatural ability to remove from the board anyone who started asking questions.
I rub my temples and sit back against the solid leather of the library chair. Maybe there was a reasonable explanation… no t one that I needed to think about. Forensic accounting isn’t ever going to be my strong suit – I can barely keep a handle on my bank balance.
I close my laptop and push it away, stacking up the journals in a neat pile.
My shoulders ache and my eyes are burning.
It’s three o’clock and I started work at eight, eating breakfast at the desk and downing coffee all morning.
My brain feels like it’s full of fog and my arse has literally imprinted itself on the seat of my chair.
I need a break. Something calming. Something mindless.
Something not involving the vague threat of financial crime.
And that’s how I end up heading for the aforementioned – and very possibly illegal – pool, shuffling along the corridor in my robe and flip flops.
It’s saved my sanity over the last few weeks.
When I think my eyes are about to fall out of my head from trying to decipher the duke’s spidery black scrawl, I’ve discovered that dunking myself into the cool water and swimming a few lengths clears my head.
It’s like being in my very own private spa – the long windows look out over the lawns that stretch down towards the pinewood, and I swim up and down bathed in pale golden shards of sunlight like a happy little dolphin, round and cheerful in my grey bathing suit.
Only—
I stop dead in the doorway.
“Edie! Join us.” It’s an instruction as much as an invitation.
Jamie’s sprawled on a lounger by the side of the pool with a bottle of champagne in one hand and a pretty blonde in the other.
His head’s tipped back, a broad smile on his handsome face.
Two girls in tiny bikinis appear from the changing room, all long legs and effortless beauty.
The pool is a maelstrom of splashing and hysterical laughter.
A girl with a soaked dark ponytail is trying to mount an inflatable pink crocodile held steady by the fair-haired gardener I’ve seen mowing the lawns with stoic determination.
A cork pops behind me, making me jump.
“This is our resident literary genius,” Jamie explains, unfolding himself from the lounger and strolling over to join me in the doorway. “Come to join the fun?”
“I—”
“Oh, come on,” Jamie says, waggling the bottle. “I bet you’ve been working your arse off all day again, haven’t you?”
I bob my head in acknowledgment. “Something like that, yeah.”
“So you can help us celebrate. It’s World Rewilding Day, and we’ve seen the first beavers in the river in living memory.”
“Beavers, baby,” shouts the burly blond gardener from the pool, raising a fist in the air and making everyone laugh.
“Come on,” Jamie cajoles. “Have a glass of champagne, celebrate some beavers.”
I look at him like, seriously? and he grins. “Everyone’s got to cut loose once in a while. We’ve planted ten thousand trees since January, and we’re all knackered.”
“I was planning a quiet swim before I get back to work.” I tighten my grip on my towel.
Jamie makes a show of glancing around. “And yet here we are. Silence, serenity, scantily clad women… it’s like a luxury retreat.”
There’s another enormous splash as someone dive bombs into the pool.
“Okay, not so much of the silence and serenity.”
“And not so much of the retreat, unless it’s one run by a hedge fund manager having a mid-life crisis ”
“Oh, harsh.” Jamie clutches his heart as if wounded. “If you insist on making an entrance, the least you can do is stay for a drink.”
I shouldn’t. I should turn around, go back to my room, and reclaim my evening. But I’ve spent all day hunched over that bloody desk trying to figure out the mysteries of the late duke, and the water looks so inviting.
So with an excruciatingly polite smile, I drop my towel, breathe in, and head for the pool. I’m almost at the water’s edge when Jamie grabs my hand and yanks me in.
I surface, spluttering, my hair in my eyes. There’s a roar of laughter from the side of the pool and a moment later someone passes us both a glass of champagne. Jamie tips his glass towards mine and we drink.
It’s a moment before I realise the door has opened again and the room darkens.
Still in his travel clothes – dark trousers, the habitual crisp white shirt, and an expensive dark coat – Rory stands in the doorway, his shoulders dominating the space, his jaw set like granite.
His eyes lock onto mine with an intensity that sends a bolt of heat straight to my core.
There’s something dangerous in that look, something that makes my skin tingle even with the cool water lapping around me.
For a long moment he glares down at us, taking in the scene, noticing the champagne flute in my hand, his brother’s too-close proximity to me.
“Glad to see the research is going well,” he says, and the temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees.
Then he turns and walks away.